


Cryptozoologist, Unwilling

by masulevin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cryptozoology, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8978863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masulevin/pseuds/masulevin
Summary: A short story I wrote for my master's program last year. Megan is a recent biology graduate who's unhappily taken a job at a cryptozoology museum to help make ends meet. When the owner sends her on a scouting trip, she gets more than she bargained for.





	

Megan stared at the diploma framed and mounted on the wall of her bedroom in the apartment she shared with two other girls as she got dressed. She felt the words “Master of Science in Biology” mocking her as she buttoned up her work shirt and smoothed out the pocket that had “Charlottesville Cryptozoology Museum” embroidered in block letters.

She checked the time on her iPhone and sighed before stepping into her tiny bathroom to brush her teeth. With only two minutes to spare until the absolute latest time she could leave without being late, she twisted her damp hair into a bun and swiped mascara across her eyelashes. Her roommates were already gone when she finally paused by the front door to slip her feet into the Toms that rested there, even though they were both dangerously close to developing holes in the toes. She sprinkled a couple of flakes into the fishbowl on the side table, watching as the betta fish sucked them up.

Her keys and wallet were also on the table by the bowl, and she grabbed them with one hand as she walked through the door. She paused to lock both deadbolts and then opted to take the six flights of stairs down to the street instead of waiting for the elevator. She burst outside a minute later and frowned when she saw that the sky was a dingy, overcast gray. Despite the dimness of the morning, sweat broke out on her skin as the humidity engulfed her and she paused for a moment to catch her breath. Vowing once again to move to a cooler state once she could get a real job, she took a sighed and started on her six-block walk to work.

She got to the museum before her boss, just before nine, and unlocked the back door. She made her way through the back of the museum, flipping light switches as she went. The flickery fluorescents illuminated the small break room that housed a low wooden table and a dusty mini fridge balanced on a TV tray, the hallway with the brownish vinyl tiles that lead to the owner’s office, and finally the large warehouse-like room that held all of the museum’s artifacts in glass cabinets. She stood and watched as the stuffed creatures morphed from ominous shadows to slightly dusty, not very convincing cryptids—the Tatzelwurm, the Fiji mermaid, the small rabbit-like Jackalope. The light bounced off of the long, low glass cabinets that housed all sorts of smaller artifacts: photos, plaster casts, and random fossils.

She unlocked the front door and flipped the sign around so that the side that said “open” faced the empty parking lot. At the front of the warehouse, just a few feet away from the front door, was a long counter that served as Megan’s desk. She plopped down on the stool and dropped her keys, wallet, and cracked iPhone into one of the drawers before pulling out a timesheet, pencil, and a Sudoku book. She wrote down the date, August 8, and the time she had arrived, 8:55 AM, on the timesheet before replacing it in the drawer. The Sudoku book she kept out to play with until her boss wandered in after 9:30.

They still didn’t have any guests.

Richard Moore, the sixty-eight-year-old owner of the museum and long time friend of Megan’s parents, unlocked his office door down the hall and sat down without coming to the front to check on Megan. She hid her sudoku book behind the cash register and tried to look attentive, in case he came to see her, but lost interest in behaving after just a couple of minutes staring into the empty parking lot.

Megan slid off of the stool and made her way down the hallway to stick her head into Moore’s office. His desk was piled high with stacks of paper and wayward newspaper clippings. He had his desk phone tucked between his shoulder and ear, and he had his cellphone in his hand, typing furiously with one index finger. He glanced up at her when she leaned on the door frame, but he just frowned and made a shooing motion at her.

She grimaced and turned her back on him just as the bell at the front door let out its delicate chime. She heard him say “would you calm down, it can’t be that bad” before she had to round the corner to smile at the customers.

The small area between the glass door and the front counter had a bored pair of mothers and a few boys who looked like they were in middle school. The boys were pushing at each other and one was about to throw a punch when they saw Megan round the corner.

“They can go on back if they want,” Megan said as she slipped behind the counter and climbed back onto the stool. The boys took off running and one of the moms followed, leaving the other alone, debit card in hand. “Two adults and three kids?” Megan asked, an easy smile on her face. The other woman nodded and passed the debit card over the counter for Megan to scan. She quickly scrawled her name on the receipt before following the rest of the group.

Megan kept one eye on them as she slipped her sudoku book back out from behind the register. She filled in a few of the boxes before Moore suddenly appeared around the corner. The little boys were staring intently into the display case that contained some Yeti footprint casts and the moms were taking pictures of them, so none of them noticed when Megan hastily hid her puzzle book and left them alone to follow Moore into his office.

He sat down behind his desk and motioned for her to sit too. She looked down at the folding chair that held a stack of old magazines before hesitantly perching on the edge of it and waited for Moore to explain what was going on. She wondered with a mix of dread and hope if she was about to be fired.

Moore didn’t make her wait long. “There’s another cryptozoology museum outside of Phoenix,” he informed her, leaning his elbows on the top of his desk. “The owner just called me to see if I could come out and help him investigate some weird sightings they’ve been getting out of Payson.” He paused, then casually added, “I’ve been in the business the longest out of all of us, you know.”

Megan pressed her lips together and nodded at him. He reminded her about once a week.

“I wanted to go out there—it’s been years since I’ve gotten to really go on a hunt, but I can’t fly with my sinus condition.” Megan wanted to ask what kind of sinus condition he had, but decided she’d actually rather stay in the dark about that. “He wants me out there ASAP. He’s never been wrong before. I told him I had a young girl here who’d be just as good as I would be and that she’d probably be willing to help. Was I right?”

Megan raised her eyebrows. “You want me to go hunt Bigfoot in Payson?” she asked, trying to keep the doubt from her voice. She decided to be relieved she wasn’t getting fired.

“Oh, no,” Moore said pleasantly, tugging gently at the gray goatee that spring from his chin. “He’d never be so far south. Payson itself has nice weather, but getting to Arizona from Washington State would take him through too much desert.”

_Is he being serious?_ Megan carefully kept her face blank. “Oh okay.”

Moore continued: “It could just be a vulture or something, but there are some reports that say there’s a lizard-like creature flying around the mountains up there.” He held his iPhone up and pointed the screen at her. Someone had emailed him a pixelated picture of a shadowy something over some equally pixelated trees. She wasn’t impressed.

“Jack wants me to fly out to Phoenix this week to help him identify the animal, or at least grab more footage of it. Apparently, his assistant just left him for some sort of accountancy job.”

_If only._  “What does this have to do with me?” Megan asked. She started to lean back before she felt the stack of magazines shift behind her. She straightened her back uncomfortably and tried to look attentive.

“I want you to go for me.”

“Why?”

“Jack needs help, and if you catch anything, we can use it to pull in new business. You’ve been working here a couple months now; you know how to work all the equipment from doing demonstrations. I think you’ll do great.” _Never mind that I’ve never used the equipment in the field before._ When Megan didn’t respond, Moore said, “You can probably catch a flight out tomorrow and spend three days out there and that would be fine. If you put the flight on a credit card, I’ll reimburse you on your next check.”

Megan thought about the minimum payment she’d just made on her one and only credit card. “I don’t have one,” she lied.

Moore wrinkled his forehead. “O-Okay. I’ll just do it.” He scrawled a note on a post-it and stuck it right in the middle of his desktop screen before speaking again. “I’ll let you know when your flight is. You can take the equipment you need tonight. I’ll pack it up for you.”

A silence followed as Megan nodded.

“Okay? Go make sure the guests aren’t leaving their gum in the Jackalope again.” Moore stared levelly at her as she slipped from the chair and returned to her stool at the front of the museum.

Her face felt hot and she pressed her palms to her cheeks. The little family was still wandering through the aisles, making faraway noises, but Megan ignored them. She propped her elbows on the counter and closed her eyes.

_What have I gotten myself into?_

Moore kept his promise, and when they locked the museum doors at six that night he had a flight confirmation printed out for her, the credit card he usually used to buy office supplies, and a small bag of equipment. He laid everything out on the breakroom table, showing her all of the pieces that she would need for hunting _whatever_ it was she was supposed to find in Payson: a voice recorder, a parabolic microphone, electromagnetic frequency detector, a thermo gun, a small video camera, a DSLR camera, a few motion detectors, a set of walkie talkies, and one pair of night vision goggles.

Tapping the goggles case, Moore said, “Jack should have his own of _most_ of this stuff, whatever didn’t fail, but you need your own set. And it never hurts to have an extra pair of walkies for when you don’t have service in the mountains and your first set dies.”

Megan frowned, his words increasing the sense of unease that was coiling in her chest. She opened her mouth to ask if she really had to go before he zipped the bag shut and pushed it across the table to her.

“Your flight leaves at nine tomorrow morning, and your return flight is Friday at three PM. Do you need a ride to the airport?”

“Uh, no.” She’d take the bus, like she always did when where she needed to be wasn’t in walking distance. Moore didn’t press her for details. He just nodded and said, “Keep in touch. Let me know as soon as you find anything.”

 “Okay. I will.” She put the credit card and flight information into her wallet, slung the heavy bag over her shoulder, and walked past him to head back to her apartment.

 ---

She barely made it to the airport on time, missing breakfast, and her terminal didn’t have any good restaurants to help that. She did buy a four dollar bottle of water from a nearby kiosk, complaining to herself as she did so, before sitting down to wait for the boarding call.

She didn’t have time to sleep between Charlottesville and Charlotte, where she caught a connecting flight, but did fall asleep on the four and a half hour trip from Charlotte to Phoenix. She dreamed about the study abroad she did in Costa Rica, remembering the family she stayed with and the trips into the jungle. In her dream, the Costa Rican tour guide morphed into Moore, who wore khaki shorts that were too short and a smear of visible sunscreen on his nose. He lectured her about the proper way to get chewing gum out of the fur of a stuffed animal, embarrassing her in front of the other students. He pointed at the jungle floor by her booted feet, and she looked down to see that a winged iguana was gnawing on her shoelaces.

She woke up with a start as the man next to her on the plane jostled her elbow. Her whole body jerked once as she sat straight up, tugging at her seatbelt. The man peered at her from under bushy eyebrows but quickly looked away when she made eye contact.

The captain came over the intercom to let everyone know they were making their descent into Phoenix Sky Harbor. She pushed the window shade up and watched the brown landscape slowly come up to greet the plane.

It took an hour for her suitcase to arrive at baggage claim. Normally for a three-day trip she’d just have a carry-on to avoid the extra fee, but having all of Moore’s equipment meant she’d had to check the oversized suitcase. She called her mom to let her know she’d landed safely and would definitely let her know when she was in the car with Jack.

Jack, as it turned out, was younger than she expected. She’d just assumed he would be someone like Moore: too old to do anything else at this point in his life. While he was young, he was still older than her, probably in his mid-thirties. He loaded her suitcase into the back of his dirty white Elantra with a thin smile.

She got into the front seat and texted her mother and Moore the same message: _Just got in the car with Jack. I’ll let you know when we reach Payson._ She scrolled through Instagram while Jack got in the driver’s seat and buckled his seatbelt.

“Is this your first time in Arizona?” Jack asked, turning his signal on before merging back into traffic. His sunglasses were resting around the back of his neck, and he moved them up to rest on his nose.

Megan locked her phone and tucked it under her thigh. “Yeah. It’s hotter than I expected.”

Jack laughed hoarsely, like a cough. “They say it’s a dry heat, but once you get over 110 degrees, it doesn’t really matter anymore. It’s much cooler in Payson, up in the mountain. There are actual trees.” They followed the interstate to overpasses decorated with brown rocks and stylized lizard mosaics which illustrated his point.

“Mmm,” Megan replied, noncommittally, trying to study him without being obvious about it. “Tell me about the museum? How do you know Moore?”

“Who, Rich? We met at a convention in Seattle a few years back. We ended up trying to camp in the same area on the Sasquatch expedition.” Jack continued explaining how he had stumbled into cryptozoology after getting his business degree from Grand Canyon University, finding it enthralling after years of being told mythical creatures just didn’t exist.

Megan watched him while he talked, squinting against the bright desert sun. He had greasy blonde hair in a ponytail without the ends pulled all the way through, tan lines on his face from sunglasses, and a similar white stripe around his left ring finger. A scruffy beard surrounded his thin, pale lips, and he dodged around slower cars to move through the city traffic.

After a few minutes, it was Megan’s turn to explain her life story, how she had graduated with reasonable accomplishments from a master’s program in zoology but hadn’t made it into the doctoral program she’d been eyeing, and the local zoo didn’t have enough money to hire her. She did volunteer regularly, but it wasn’t the same, and in order to avoid moving back in with her parents in east-Jesus-nowhere, Virginia, she’d taken a job at Moore’s museum.

“I’ve only been working there three months--well, four I guess--so I don’t really think I’m quite qualified to be here.” She pulled her phone out to stare at Facebook, embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. She smoothed her frizzy hair with her right hand, vainly pressing it back towards her bun.

Jack ignored her confession, and continued with the conversation: “I didn’t really peg you for someone who’d get a PhD.” Megan frowned, but he kept talking, filling the silence for the rest of the ninety minute drive up into Payson.

They stopped at a little Super 8, the kind of motel where all of the doors were open to the outside. Moore had booked her a room there, and Jack dropped her off to get settled in. Their work would begin after dinner, as most of the sightings were reported at night.

Megan dropped her suitcase onto the queen bed by the door. The room smelled like stale cigarettes and the carpet felt crunchy under her shoes. She pulled the comforter off of the second queen bed, the one closer to the bathroom that she was kind of scared to go into, and dumped it onto the floor in front of the closet. She sat on top of the sheets and flipped the TV on, switching channels until she found a local news station, then texted her mom to let her know she was safe.

_For now,_ Megan thought ominously, eyeing the loose chain on the door. _Maybe I’ll set up the video camera in here and tell Jack that Moore didn’t send me with one._

She didn’t even realize that she’d fallen asleep until her phone started ringing. It was Jack, letting her know that he would be coming to get her soon, and did she want anything to eat? She just asked for a white mocha and a bagel.

Megan dressed for work in clothes she hadn’t gotten to wear since she’d graduated: heavy jeans tucked into hiking boots and a University of Virginia shirt with a light jacket thrown over it. She left her hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen in the suitcase, pulling out the bag of gear instead. She hovered by the motel room door until she saw Jack pull up, then she ran out before he had a chance to get out and knock. Safely in the car, she tucked the key into one of the pockets of her pants and took the paper cup of coffee from Jack. It was from a place she’d never heard of, but it was hot and it tasted okay. It, and her nap, would keep her awake through the late night.

“Where are we going exactly?” Megan asked, staring out the window at the street signs instead of at Jack, munching on the toasted bagel.

“There’s a family just outside of town with a bit of land, the Popes,” he explained, “and they’ve been noticing some weird things around their home. Pest control couldn’t help, and…” he paused and Megan looked over to see him rubbing his mouth with his hand, rasping at his stubble.  “My footage has been less than helpful. I was hoping Moore would be able to help.”

“I see.” Megan said, even though she didn’t really. She was regretting agreeing to make the trip in the first place. It set a bad precedent for the rest of her time at the museum.

It turned out that “just outside town” was about a thirty-minute drive that ended at a long dirt and gravel driveway that reminded Megan of her parents’ back home. Jack explained what signs the family had seen: gouges in the field, uprooted trees that had been healthy just the day before, and the disappearance of the family cat. That’s what had prompted the call to the sheriff's department, who had referred them to the local pest control service, who had laughingly referred them to Jack’s Crypto Emporium. Jack’s equipment, mostly unused since he’d opened the Emporium, failed him, so he called Moore.

_Who sent me,_ Megan thought, draining her mocha and leaving the empty cup in Jack’s cup holder. He parked in the grass by the porch and grabbed the bags of equipment from the backseat. He marched up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Megan hovered behind him, trying her best not to show how uncomfortable she was. Her wide eyes and flaring nostrils betrayed that though, and the middle-aged women who opened the door hesitated when she saw her.

Jack didn’t notice. “Hello, ma’am!” he said, voice gravelly. “This is Megan. She’s the cryptozoologist from Virginia I told you about.” Mrs. Pope nodded once and relaxed as Megan raised one hand in a half wave. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll get our equipment set up in your backyard and hopefully have something to tell you in the morning.”

Mrs. Pope tore her gaze away from Megan, who was gazing at the moving boxes that stacked up along the walls behind the plump woman, and forced a thin smile. “That’s just fine,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do!” Jack replied. Mrs. Pope shut the door slowly, and Jack turned to Megan, a grin lighting up his eyes. He was excited, the emotion looking out of place, but she was just beginning to feel jittery from the coffee.

“Follow me. I already figured out everywhere you need to set up your stuff.” He jumped down from the porch—Megan took the two steps down—and walked across the damp grass behind him.

It took them about ten minutes to get past the manicured part of the lawn to the wooden fence that separated it from a wide, unkempt field. The gate was broken, so the pair climbed over the fence rails and waded into the tall grasses.

Megan was glad for her sturdy boots as a list of poisonous critters native to Arizona sprang unbidden to her mind. When they finally reached a small copse of trees about a hundred yards from the fence, Jack stopped and put the bags on the ground.

“We only have about half an hour until sundown,” he informed her, unzipping one of the duffles, “so you have to work fast.”

She nodded and unzipped the other one, her bag, and began pulling out equipment. She let Jack boss her around, telling her exactly where to set up each piece, though she actually managed the settings herself. She knew how to work each piece from her time doing demonstrations in the museum, but the more practical information, like where to hide a motion detector, was all new. She wondered what important information she was losing to make room for this.

Jack pulled two tiny camping chairs out of the other duffle and set them up under the trees. When Megan returned from setting up the last recorder, he handed her a bottle of water. She handed him a walkie talkie, even though it was clear he planned on sitting together.

Her iPhone burned a hole in her pocket, but she resisted the urge to pull it out. She didn’t need to look at it to know she wouldn’t even have 3G this far from a real city.

She put the bottle of water in the chair and picked up the EMF reader and thermo gun out of the duffle. “Which would you like?” she asked. Without answering, he took the EMF detector from her hand and switched it on. She settled in her camp chair and switched the thermo gun on, pointing it out into the dusky field. It was already cooling down to 50 degrees. She pulled her hoodie out of the duffle bag and tugged it over her head.

 ---

Her snores woke her up sometime later. She shot upright in the chair, face flaming, racking her brain to figure out why she couldn’t see anything at all.

“You didn’t miss anything,” Jack said quietly, voice tense. “EMF reader hasn’t spiked once. I even walked around for a bit, but I didn’t want to scare whatever it is off. The microphone hasn’t picked anything up except for ordinary noises. I think there’s an owl in the tree above us.”

He shifted around in his chair and sighed. Megan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness just enough to see his silhouette; he rubbed his hands over his face then tugged at his hair.

“Maybe it knows we’re here.” He said this quietly, almost under his breath, but Megan still heard the hint of desperation in his voice. “That’s why it won’t come.”

As if in answer, a twig snapped across the field.

Megan heard Jack’s gasp as he jumped to attention. She grabbed her night vision goggles and searched the green landscape for the source of the noise.

After a breathless minute, she found it.

“Jack, look,” she whispered. She waited until he spotted the small herd of elk that had just wandered into the field a few yards away.

He grunted. She eagerly watched the elk grazing. One bull pushed its antlers against a small tree, which eventually broke under the pressure. The loud crack startled the other elk, and they ran a short distance away before beginning to graze again.

With a smile, Megan pulled the goggles away to look at her companion. “It’s just elk causing the problems!” She tried to whisper, but her excitement made her speak louder than she intended.

Jack stood up quickly, knocking the chair over. He walked a few paces away and she could see his outline against the starry sky. “It can’t be,” he said voice rising defiantly, facing the elk. Quietly, he added, “Elk don’t bring visitors.”

Megan’s heart sank, and she watched the elk eating the grass without responding. She shivered in the midnight air and wondered how many nights Jack would drive out to this poor family’s house to sit in their backyard.

_Maybe it wouldn’t be_ so _bad to move back home._

All at once, the elk stopped grazing and turned to look to the west. The full moon was just beginning to crest over the mountain peak behind the herd, and Megan lowered her night vision goggles to follow their gaze. The bright light illuminated a shadowy figure at the edge of the field.

Megan stopped breathing, an icy chill touching her limbs. She couldn’t even move to tell Jack to look, but the elk had alerted him too. They all stood still, staring at the shadow.

Then everything happened at once. The elk turned and ran, leaping over the far fence like it was nothing. The shadow moved, climbing high over the field, chasing after the fleeing herd. Jack started to run too, taking a step back, but his camping chair grabbed his feet. He sat down hard, tipping the chair over backward.

The shadow didn’t care. It arched gracefully into the moonlight, long claws outstretched toward the elk. Silver light glinted off of its teeth, and its huge black wings pumped hard to push it into the woods. Megan shook in the breeze the beast left behind, finally taking a breath, the goggles still clutched to her chest.


End file.
